FROM DENVER POST
Poetry keeping flame alive despite the dark
By David Milofsky
Whether it's a high-schooler performing at a poetry slam or folks publishing formal verse, poetry is enjoying something of a renaissance. ( Denver Post file )
Without obvious fanfare, over the past 10 to 20 years a seismic change in publishing has occurred: Poetry has become our fastest-growing literary cottage industry, relying less on legions of editors in New York and elsewhere to shape literary tastes than on the energy and inventiveness of the poets themselves.
Not that there aren't protestations to the contrary, especially during National Poetry Month, which has just concluded. But the fact that a major art form has been marginalized is undeniable.
A few poets, such as Derek Walcott, John Ashbery, Philip Levine, Ed Hirsch and Maxine Kumin, are still published by major trade houses, but the exception proves the rule. Most poets are published by small or university presses, if they are published at all. And given the anemic sales figures and distribution problems of houses like Graywolf, BOA editions, Copper Canyon and Coffee House, it's an open question whether any of them will be around or publishing poetry a decade from now.
Paradoxically, while few people seem to be reading or buying poetry, there has likely never been a time when more people were writing poems, especially because in the age of print on demand virtually anyone with a computer and a rudimentary knowledge of PageMaker can become his or her own publisher.
It was Daniel Halpern, publisher of Ecco Press, who once remarked trenchantly, "If as many people bought poetry as wrote poetry, there would be no problem publishing it." But that was in the bad old days before online journals and perfect-bound chapbooks, which have reduced the costs involved in a small print run to virtually nothing.
There's really nothing wrong with this. In fact, you have to admire the inventiveness of poets who, unlike most fiction writers, have stopped whining about the death of art as we know it and embraced the new reality. On a local level, for example, there are small presses like Ghost Road and Turkey Buzzard, which, if not household words, are publishing local poets such as Aaron Abeyta, Chris Ransick and Marilyn Krysl to name only a few. There is no telling how these books do in terms of sales figures. Few major newspapers or magazines run poetry reviews, but there's unquestionably something going on in the small-press scene.
University writing programs are a major sustaining factor in poetry. Colorado boasts such programs at the University of Denver, University of Colorado Denver, University of Colorado at Boulder and Colorado State University, employing such poets as Bin Ramke, Bill Zaranka, Julie Carr, Dan Beachy-Quick, Anne Waldman, Jack Collom, Kathy Winograd, Elizabeth Robinson and others. They are ensuring a new generation of poets who will no doubt emulate their mentors in new and ingenious ways.
Robinson and Carr, who have had books selected for the prestigious National Poetry Series, run their own presses, Counterpath and EtherDome respectively, through which they've published local poets.
The fact that most of this happens under the radar of public consciousness is really neither here nor there. It's also beside the point that one reason poetry can thrive in this way is that it costs much more to publish even a slim collection of short fiction than it does a collection of poems. The relevant fact is that in a reduced economic climate, poetry seems to be alive and well, at least on the Front Range. People are writing it, reading it and supporting their colleagues' endeavors to do the same. Would that the rest of the literary world could follow their example.
Shock is not too strong a word to describe the reaction of literati to the Northwestern University Press announcement that print publication of the venerable literary journal TriQuarterly will cease with the next issue and move online.
The magazine began in the 1950s and under the brilliant editorship of Charles Newman became one of America's most prestigious literary publications. Contributors constituted a who's who of literary publishing, including Saul Bellow, Vladimir Nabokov, Joyce Carol Oates, Amy Hempel and Charles Baxter.
Perhaps most disturbing is the news that TriQuarterly editors Susan Firestone Hahn and Ian Morris will not make the move. Instead, the journal will be edited by students from Northwestern's creative writing program. Nothing wrong with student editors, but this is like replacing an Aston Martin with a moped and expecting you to like it.
Few in the know would disagree with Jeffrey Lependorf, executive director of the Council of Literary Magazines and Presses, who told The Chronicle of Higher Education that "this doesn't feel like the passing of the torch; it feels like the extinguishing of the flame."
Northwestern denies that financial problems were responsible for the move and claims it will be "an exciting development" for the journal. Few who've read TriQuarterly over the years would agree. Granted, other literary journals have folded over the years. And such distinguished journals as the New England Review and Southern Review are under great pressure from their sponsoring institutions. But TriQuarterly was something special.
As Hahn said in the Chronicle article: "I'm very sad. I'm grieving for an inanimate object that's filled with life." Amen to that.
David Milofsky is a novelist and professor of English at Colorado State University.
Poetry keeping flame alive despite the dark
By David Milofsky
Whether it's a high-schooler performing at a poetry slam or folks publishing formal verse, poetry is enjoying something of a renaissance. ( Denver Post file )
Without obvious fanfare, over the past 10 to 20 years a seismic change in publishing has occurred: Poetry has become our fastest-growing literary cottage industry, relying less on legions of editors in New York and elsewhere to shape literary tastes than on the energy and inventiveness of the poets themselves.
Not that there aren't protestations to the contrary, especially during National Poetry Month, which has just concluded. But the fact that a major art form has been marginalized is undeniable.
A few poets, such as Derek Walcott, John Ashbery, Philip Levine, Ed Hirsch and Maxine Kumin, are still published by major trade houses, but the exception proves the rule. Most poets are published by small or university presses, if they are published at all. And given the anemic sales figures and distribution problems of houses like Graywolf, BOA editions, Copper Canyon and Coffee House, it's an open question whether any of them will be around or publishing poetry a decade from now.
Paradoxically, while few people seem to be reading or buying poetry, there has likely never been a time when more people were writing poems, especially because in the age of print on demand virtually anyone with a computer and a rudimentary knowledge of PageMaker can become his or her own publisher.
It was Daniel Halpern, publisher of Ecco Press, who once remarked trenchantly, "If as many people bought poetry as wrote poetry, there would be no problem publishing it." But that was in the bad old days before online journals and perfect-bound chapbooks, which have reduced the costs involved in a small print run to virtually nothing.
There's really nothing wrong with this. In fact, you have to admire the inventiveness of poets who, unlike most fiction writers, have stopped whining about the death of art as we know it and embraced the new reality. On a local level, for example, there are small presses like Ghost Road and Turkey Buzzard, which, if not household words, are publishing local poets such as Aaron Abeyta, Chris Ransick and Marilyn Krysl to name only a few. There is no telling how these books do in terms of sales figures. Few major newspapers or magazines run poetry reviews, but there's unquestionably something going on in the small-press scene.
University writing programs are a major sustaining factor in poetry. Colorado boasts such programs at the University of Denver, University of Colorado Denver, University of Colorado at Boulder and Colorado State University, employing such poets as Bin Ramke, Bill Zaranka, Julie Carr, Dan Beachy-Quick, Anne Waldman, Jack Collom, Kathy Winograd, Elizabeth Robinson and others. They are ensuring a new generation of poets who will no doubt emulate their mentors in new and ingenious ways.
Robinson and Carr, who have had books selected for the prestigious National Poetry Series, run their own presses, Counterpath and EtherDome respectively, through which they've published local poets.
The fact that most of this happens under the radar of public consciousness is really neither here nor there. It's also beside the point that one reason poetry can thrive in this way is that it costs much more to publish even a slim collection of short fiction than it does a collection of poems. The relevant fact is that in a reduced economic climate, poetry seems to be alive and well, at least on the Front Range. People are writing it, reading it and supporting their colleagues' endeavors to do the same. Would that the rest of the literary world could follow their example.
Shock is not too strong a word to describe the reaction of literati to the Northwestern University Press announcement that print publication of the venerable literary journal TriQuarterly will cease with the next issue and move online.
The magazine began in the 1950s and under the brilliant editorship of Charles Newman became one of America's most prestigious literary publications. Contributors constituted a who's who of literary publishing, including Saul Bellow, Vladimir Nabokov, Joyce Carol Oates, Amy Hempel and Charles Baxter.
Perhaps most disturbing is the news that TriQuarterly editors Susan Firestone Hahn and Ian Morris will not make the move. Instead, the journal will be edited by students from Northwestern's creative writing program. Nothing wrong with student editors, but this is like replacing an Aston Martin with a moped and expecting you to like it.
Few in the know would disagree with Jeffrey Lependorf, executive director of the Council of Literary Magazines and Presses, who told The Chronicle of Higher Education that "this doesn't feel like the passing of the torch; it feels like the extinguishing of the flame."
Northwestern denies that financial problems were responsible for the move and claims it will be "an exciting development" for the journal. Few who've read TriQuarterly over the years would agree. Granted, other literary journals have folded over the years. And such distinguished journals as the New England Review and Southern Review are under great pressure from their sponsoring institutions. But TriQuarterly was something special.
As Hahn said in the Chronicle article: "I'm very sad. I'm grieving for an inanimate object that's filled with life." Amen to that.
David Milofsky is a novelist and professor of English at Colorado State University.
Nessun commento:
Posta un commento